George sought the foreman machinist; said slowly: “But I don't see how the story helps me?”
“Well, you must think over it,” Professor Wyvern told him. “I dare not tell you any more. I must be no party to the inference that can be drawn. But do you not see that the thing our Professor cherished most was his wig? Now, Bill has told me that the thing your uncle cherishes above all price is—”
Click went the machine; round buzzed the wheels; out from George's eyes shot the sparkles. He jumped to his feet, his face red. “Is his cat!” he cried. “His Rose of Sharon! I see it! I see it! By Gad, I'll do it! Look here now—”
“No, I will not,” the Professor said. “I do not wish to know anything about it. I hear my wife's step.”
“I understand. All right. But don't tell a soul—not even Bill.”
“I cannot tell, because I do not know. But I suspect it is something very funny,” and the Professor burst into a very deep “Ho! ho! ho!”
“My dearest,” said Mrs. Wyvern at the door, “whatever can you be laughing at so loudly?”
“Ho! ho! ho! ho!” boomed the Professor, belling like a bloodhound. “It is something very funny.”
Mrs. Wyvern kissed the thin hairs on the top of his mighty head. “Dear William, I do trust it was not one of those painful stories of your young days.”
George stayed to dinner. By nine he left the house. He did not make for home. Striking through lanes he climbed an ascending field, mounted a stile, and here, with an unseeing eye upon Herons' Holt twinkling its bedroom lights in the valley below, he smoked many pipes, brooding upon his scheme.